bizarre keyboard behavior in PPT XP and 2000

[Guest]

After I open a ppt presentation in either Office XP or Office 2000,
everything functions normally for a few minutes. Then my mouse tracking
speed slows considerably, and I cannot activate buttons or select text by
double clicking. And keyboard commands, particularly those involving the
CTRL key, work only intermittently. I will be able to execute one command,
then there will be a prolonged period of 30 seconds or so where no commands
can be executed. This problem exists with multiple ppt files in either
version of Office. It does not appear to be hardware related, since if I
switch to another application keyboard and mouse control return to normal. I
turned off background saves, no change. All office updates for both versions
have been installed. If I take the very same ppt files and put them on my
laptop (Sony Vaio, same OS, same Office versions), they work fine. So the
files aren't corrupt.

I am running a clean install of XP Pro, SP2 (installed on freshly formatted
disk ~1 month ago and everything else is running flawlessly) on both systems.
Any help would be most appreciated!

 

[Sonia]

What is different between your laptop and your desktop? Hardware, yes. But
what about software? Do you have any add-ins installed in PowerPoint on your
desktop? Do you have an anti-virus app running that isn't running in the same
way on the laptop?

 

[Guest]

To my knowledge, I have no addins installed on my desktop. I don't even know
how to check. I just installed from the CD's using the typical settings and
no customizations. The Office XP is a Students/Teachers addition, and Office
2000 Pro is my work's corporate site license which I don't believe has
anything special about it. My laptop is runnng a corporate edition of Norton
AV (9) and my desktop is running Trend PCCillin 2004. I could try disabling
Trend on the desktop if you think that might be an issue, but the Security
Center will yell at me! I'll try it.

 

[Sonia]

So, you are sadistic too! <G> I can hear them screaming from here.

My point is that the similarities between the two systems are same OS and same
PowerPoint. That leads me to believe that the problem is due to a difference
somewhere else, such as drivers, other software, hardware, etc.

By add-ins I meant in PowerPoint. Go to Tools > Add-ins and see if anything is
listed.

Is your mouse wireless or corded? If corded, is the ball clean? Have you tried
swapping the mouse and keyboard?

Have you rebooted?

Is there any pattern? By that I mean what are you doing just before the problem
starts?

 

[Guest]

OK, I'm an idiot. Problem fixed. I am using a Wireless Optical Desktop, and
i recently re-positioned my CPU and wireless receiver to another area of the
room. I moved the receiver three feet closer and all the bizarrities
disappeared. I have no idea why switching from one application to another
would alter the behavior of the keyboard under such settings, though. What
was odd was the time-dependent nature of the malfunction: changes to the
first several slides in ppt worked fine, then all the secondary mouse clicks
or two-key shortcuts got lost. I guess I was just on the cusp of being out
of range.

Don't ever believe the "25 feet" range specs they put on the box!

Sorry for the distraction...

 

[Sonia]

And to think that I deleted my question asking if you were using a wireless
keyboard and mouse. <G>

But, now you see that it *was* hardware.